A Question of Faith
by The Readers Muse
Summary: If you had to make a decision that would spell out the fate of your soul...what would you chose? Hell? Or... Hell on earth?


**Authors note:** Please read and review and let me know how I am doing, it is the best way for my writing to improve and my ego to be boosted! (hehe) Not to worry, I am still working on my long term fic: "A Nightmare Walking", this just came to me a while ago, I am just finally getting this on paper.

**Disclaimer:** I do not in any way shape or form own any of the plot, characters, etc of the Dawn of the Dead universe. They belong to whoever owns 'em. I just took the general idea for a test jaunt. So, don't sue me...not that it would be beneficial, as I am a poor college student, yadda yadda yadda.

**Other Story Related Issues:** If you want to add my story to your site or what not, thats fine, I'd be flattered, but please PM me first for permission.

**Reviews?:** Damn straight baby!

_**A Delima of Faith...**_

The day was dieing. Another perfect sunset, the sky shot with glowing tendrils of pink and orange. But it's beauty remained unappreciated. The world was in turmoil. The world was dieing as a rolling wave of death smothered all life.

A single man watched it, sitting on a department store rooftop, he watched as the dead stalked the living. There was nothing under lyingly special about this man. He was slightly portly, well past the prime of his life. His hair was a light brown, the enviable streaks of white and gray had only just began to color the thin hair at his temples. He was filthy, his department store uniform was coated with a layer of grime, even torn in the odd place.

His name tag told one that his name was Steve, manager of the warehouse. He sat on the roofs edge, his legs dangling into oblivion as he watched the growing horde mill around below. But he did not look, his eyes were tightly closed, as he clutched a wooden beaded rosary at his breast, muttering hasty prayers, attempting, in vain to ignore the unrelenting pounding, and the muffled moans that resounded off the door across the roof, the entrance to the warehouse, and the rest of the store, the entrance to hell itself.

Level by level he had been driven upwards, his makeshift barriers trampled under their bloody feet. Day by day they worked on the doors, till gradually each one buckled. Now he was alone, trapped on the highest level, his last haven. But in this eden, there was no escape, he had no where left to run.

Finally, he finished his lengthly appeal to the heavens, and took in the view before him. As he observed the crowd below, he winced when he saw a familiar face. The lady in office 328, the one who loved Billy Ray Cyrus and peach danishes, the one that had smelled like his grandmother...he pondered why he had never asked her name? Three years of working within a floor of her, and he still never took the time to get to know her? He shook his head sadly.

He tugged uncomfortably on his collar, the sweat from another blazing hot day, only just beginning to cool on his body. Sighing deeply he reached into the backpack at his side, the sales tags still attached. Pulling out a half full bottle of water, he took a hesitant sip, pursing dry, cracked lips at the warm temperature. And then, with careful, near obsessive movements, he slowly, and deliberately screwed the cap back on, fingers shaking slightly as he placed the bottle back in the pack.

The banging on the door reached an echoing crescendo. An impressive dent in the metal rimmed frame had also appeared. But he did not turn to look, in fact, he ignored it completely. Only his face gave his fear away. His eyes widened, showing light green pupils, watery in the ending sun. Beads of sweat formed on his pale brow, slowly rolling off down the plane of his face, till an aggravated hand brushed them away.

He had given up on rescue four days ago. And in that time, not one plane, helicopter, or vehicle had passed him by. The last car has screeched out of a residential neighborhood five days previous, so covered with the clinging undead that that driver didn't make it even half a mile before crashing into a truck left abandoned on the road, the drivers door flung open.

He was still haunted by the drivers horrified screams as the demons tore inside, not even waiting to pull him out before feasting on his living flesh. The screams has stopped abruptly soon after that. Steven shivered at the mere memory.

Steven was a religious man, but at the same time, he was a realist. For example, he was certain that this plague was not the result of a punishment send by the Lord to mankind. The idea that God would send such a horror on his children was near unthinkable. He had had quite some time to ponder the situation during his imprisonment in the store he had spent most his waking hours running. From the snatches of information he had caught on the store radio before having to escape to the roof, as far as he could surmise it was simply some sort of disease. He figured something that had started in China, maybe something like SARS or the Bird Flu. Thinking back. he remembered hearing the bizarre news reports. Of the dead walking, or the strange reports of violent roaming groups of people, who attacked anyone like animals.

But Steve, like the rest of the world had passed them off as events sensationalized by an over imaginative media. Like an oxygen fed fire, they had spread, and now had enveloped the world.

A horrendous, unearthly cry echoed from the door, and a milky white pupil peered from the small gap in the chained door, the frame buckled now so that their bloody fingers and searching eyes could have a glimpse of their prey, the man who had evaded their clutches for so long. Now, just meters away, so close.

"Sweet Jesus." He murmured, fingers tightening on the beaded trinket in his grasp. So, God had chosen for his own end to be now. But oh, how he wished for an other death then this. Did anyone really deserve to die this way? Did the sweet lord truly wish to deem his end to be painful and terrible? He turned slightly as the door frame creaked again under the sheer force of the undeads feverish assaults. Suddenly he stiffened, and he remember the instrument of death that lay in the furtherest reaches of the sack at his side.

Shuddering he gingerly reached a trembling hand into the pack, and the cool metal seemed to almost spring to his grasp at once.

He moved the wretched thing into his lap as he looked out at the world again. His eyes drinking in the dusk of his last days. But reality would not be denied, and now the individual snarls and moans of the undead behind him could be heard, they had become so riled up that their noisy frenzy had alerted the aimlessly wandering dead below, and they began to cram into the shattered entrance door below. Though, some still remained below, looking up, faces vacant as their grasping hands opened and closed in vain.

He looked down again and then back to the cool metal on his lap. He shuddered, his whole body quivering with indecision and fear.

Could he do it? Would God forgive him for the sacrilege he felt ready to commit? "What a choice..." He murmured, looking at the glinting pistol, now nestled neatly in his palm. The sun that reflected off it's barrel seemed to almost wink at him. As though cheerfully promising a sure, and permanent end.

Oh! But he was so torn! The bible scriptures were dead clear, suicide was forbidden to all those who wished to make it to the joyous kingdom of heaven, in paradise with the lord for all eternity. But, to face such evil? Such pain? And to become soulless and empty like these creatures? Oh, he didn't think he could bare it!

What would the Lord condone?!?

In anguish he held back a cry of frustration and helplessness. He let his head fall, slumping down to the cradle of his dirty hands. He has never felt so lost, not even after his wife had walked out, not content with the meager income he worked so hard to receive. In a way, he forgave her, but the pain of her betrayal, had only dulled over time, never leaving his shattered heart. He wondered for the first time since this ordeal had began if she was alright. Ever after their whole painful history, he still hoped that she was. But Linda had never really dealt with stress well. He mused, but then again, neither did he. And now he was caught in the single biggest moral dilemma of his life. Where no option was life saving. It was truly a choice of the lesser of two evils. A decision that would determine the fate of his very soul.

He started violently, scrambling away from the roves edge the pack sack forgotten at his feet, as a hair-raising screech from behind him resounded across the roof. An echoing, ear-damaging scream of metal slowly bending and tearing. The hell fiends, howling with triumph, crowding against the failing barrier moaned as the door buckled and bent under their fury.

He whirled to face them, fully looking at the offending demons and acknowledging their presence for the first time in days. A single tear coursed down his weathered cheek, it's progress hindered by each wrinkle, trophies of a hard-worked life.

Not knowing what else to do, he fell to his knees as the undead beat on what barrier remained. He bowed his head, and prayed, spurred on by each moan, and each creak. The last moments, the last seconds, of a life that he could still fully call his own.

What was said will forever remain between Steven and his God. And it is not my business to reveal such things. But, I can tell you this much. Steven knelt and prayed, not only for guidance, and for the salvation salvation of himself. But for the deliverance of his entire race.

As those last few words died on his dry lips, a ray of the setting sun fell on his face, lighting up his aging features. He smiled, the agony of the last few days erased from his face. His eyes clear, and his lips sporting a hint of a smile.

And as the first of the horde tumbled over the crumpled barrier, they howled in anguish, emitting a ghastly moaning symphony as the dieing echo of a pistol blast reached their ears.

They prey had escaped them.

Soon though, other things in the distance caught their attention, and they shuffled off elsewhere.

Leaving behind the crumpled form of a man. A smile still playing on his lips, his thin hair ruffled by a cleansing breath of wind, and a halo of orange sunlight encircling his prone form, surrounding him in a warm embrace.

At long last...he was finally home...


End file.
